


Now you're speaking my language

by Jimcloud



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Shuichi figuring out a conlang asmr, and their relationship really, thats basically the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jimcloud/pseuds/Jimcloud
Summary: For this one, though, Kokichi thinks he's looking for less "impenetrable" and more "a little penetrable," something that would be challenging but not impossible to crack. A language like a puzzle. And Kokichi feels like doodling, so he decides he's gonna make like the Egyptians and hieroglyph up in this bitch. The first "word" he makes is a tiny little crown, which represents himself (obviously). Then he lets his brain go on autopilot, and ends up doodling an eye with cute li'l long lashes. Like…Oh.That's what he was going to do with this language. Kokichi's subconscious may have won the battle this time, but he'll be damned if he lets it win the war. The rest of the language comes out in a very purposeful and not subconscious five hour manic haze of scribbling, assigning, Akamatsu, Amami, and Kiibo interrupting him to make sure he wasn't getting into trouble (the nerve), and planning the delivery....Yeah, this was probably the most needlessly elaborate way anyone had ever confessed their romantic feelings in the history of people having romantic feelings. But hey, if Saihara didn't get it, then did he really earn Kokichi's affection?That, and since when did Ouma Kokichi ever do anything halfway?
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 229
Collections: April 2020 Server Gift Exchange





	Now you're speaking my language

**Author's Note:**

  * For [puffinmuffin13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/puffinmuffin13/gifts).



> this is a gift fic for a server exchange! Hope you like it, Meadow, it turned out a LITTLE BIT different than I expected but hey thats part of the fun really.

Ouma Kokichi is bored.

Sometimes, when Kokichi is bored, he will flood the school cafeteria. He did that last month, though, and far be it from him to repeat a prank  _ that _ quickly.

Sometimes, when Kokichi is bored, he will concoct a zombie apocalypse survival strategy. Now,  _ obviously _ you want to get out of big populated areas, cities and such, and into the country, but your specific play from here varies quite a bit, because you usually want someplace open so you can still take care of basic needs like keeping food and water, but also defensible in case zombies are of the mobile variety (which is usually when the train of thought devolves because now you're thinking about  _ how _ the apocalypse happens and what the zombies are  _ like _ instead of a survival strategy, and then somebody comes up and asks you why you're spacing out and the whole concept leaves you at the station).

Today, when Kokichi is bored, he is inventing a new language.

Now, Kokichi is no stranger to inventing languages, which is a sentence that he realizes would probably get him put on some kind of watch list if he wasn't already on all of them. He created a simple conlang a while back for DICE to use when "on business," a mess of loanwords and words of Kokichi's own design that's incomprehensible to outsiders. It took him a dedicated four months to get all of his peons familiar with it, but hey, it was worth it, because he was right. It's absolutely impenetrable.

For this one, though, Kokichi thinks he's looking for less "impenetrable" and more "a little penetrable," something that would be challenging but not impossible to crack. A language like a puzzle. And Kokichi feels like doodling, so he decides he's gonna make like the Egyptians and hieroglyph up in this bitch. The first "word" he makes is a tiny little crown, which represents himself (obviously). Then he lets his brain go on autopilot, and ends up doodling an eye with cute li'l long lashes. Like…

_ Oh. _

_ That's _ what he was going to do with this language. Kokichi's subconscious may have won the battle this time, but he'll be damned if he lets it win the war. The rest of the language comes out in a  _ very purposeful and not subconscious _ five hour manic haze of scribbling, assigning, Akamatsu, Amami, and Kiibo interrupting him to make sure he wasn't getting into trouble (the  _ nerve _ ), and planning the delivery.

...Yeah, this was  _ probably _ the most needlessly elaborate way anyone had ever confessed their romantic feelings in the history of people having romantic feelings. But hey, if Saihara didn't  _ get it, _ then did he  _ really _ earn Kokichi's affection?

That, and since when did Ouma Kokichi ever do anything halfway?

* * *

Shuichi thinks today is going to be a normal day at Hope's Peak Academy. In retrospect, this should have been the first sign that today was  _ not _ going to be a normal day at Hope's Peak Academy, because it never  _ is _ a normal day, but Shuichi allows himself a few delusions a day as a treat.

The first warning sign comes when Shuichi opens his locker and a piece of paper flutters out onto the floor. He picks it up, turns it over in his hands. It's filled with little scribbles and definitions next to them, and the other side has some scrawled notes about grammar and syntax along with another couple of drawings? It's… a little fascinating, and Shuichi isn't quite sure why it's here, but also, he has class to get to, so he stuffs it into a binder and moves on.

Or is about to, when something hits him and pins him to the floor.

Shuichi blinks, only to find the lavender eyes of the Ultimate Supreme Leader excitedly staring back at him.

" _ Heeeeeeeey _ Saihara," Ouma coos, grinning widely, "mind if I drop in?" His face blanks, and he raises a hand from the floor to his mouth. "Oh, wait, I'm supposed to ask that  _ before _ I drop in, aren't I."

"Ideally, yes." Shuichi rubs the back of his head. "What's going on, Ouma?"

Shuichi learned to take Ouma's strange behaviors in stride months ago. It's easy enough to see you need to, just from deduction. The people who react strongly to Ouma's behaviors - like say Kaito, Kiibo, or Miu - get harassed most often, whereas the people who don't react as strongly - like Tojo, Kaede or Amami - don't really get as much happening to them. So Shuichi learned not to give Ouma too much ground a while back.

And yet, despite all of that, Shuichi keeps ending up in situations like this. He's not really sure why, but there's a part of him - a part he doesn't like indulging - that can admit he does enjoy it. So he takes it in stride.

Ouma puts on a malicious-looking grin. "Well, I just  _ happened _ to notice from my perch," perch? "that you found a little gift in your locker." His mask drops in favor of a childish smile. "I wanted to know what it was!"

"It'll be a bit hard for me to show you if I can't reach my papers," Shuichi points out, from the floor, "and besides, don't we have class in five minutes?"

Ouma rolls his eyes. "Class, schmass! Shumai already knows everything they're going to teach, so why not sit it out for something more exciting?"

On the one hand, Ouma's right, and Shuichi  _ does _ know what this class is going to teach already. It's English, and he'd already read the book they're studying a year or two back in his free time.

On the other hand, Shuichi is  _ pretty sure _ that if he intentionally missed a class, at any time, for any reason, he would spontaneously combust like a vampire caught out in the sun.

On his third hand, which he just grew, peer pressure.

Oh, the dilemma.

"Ouma," Shuichi elects for a compromise, "how about we meet for lunch instead?" It's after English, so it won't even be that long.

Ouma pouts. "Ugh!  _ Fiiiiiiiiine. _ But  _ I'm _ not going to class. I'm going to sit right here and be a general nuisance, and no one can stop me."

He does, at least, remove himself from on top of Shuichi, though. Sitting on the floor next to the lockers, arms and legs crossed, face puffed out, he's the perfect image of a child having a tantrum.

Shuichi picks himself and his bag back up. "Well, good luck being a general nuisance," he manages before heading to class.

Shuichi's not especially surprised to find Ouma sitting in English when he gets there, feet propped on his desk like he'd been there for half an hour before Shuichi showed up.

"Wow, Saihara, didn't take you for the  _ tardy _ type," Ouma feigns checking his nails as he speaks.

Waiting the full period to find out what Ouma wants with him is agonizing.

* * *

"Alright, pull it out," Ouma says the  _ second _ Shuichi shows up to the table. Which, frankly, was faster than Shuichi had ever seen Ouma stop beating around the bush about anything. So he was  _ probably _ very excited. Which was  _ definitely _ a bad sign.

Still. He was here now.

"Ah, one second," Shuichi says, setting his apple and messenger bag down on the table between them before sitting in the chair. They'd elected to use the school's library for this meeting - at this time of day, nobody was in here, so the librarian didn't even mind them getting a little bit noisy. Which was good, because she could be  _ extremely _ scary when upset. There's a reason Shuichi stopped coming here with Kaito.

"Is that all Saihara is eating today?" Oumai points at Shuichi's apple, before bringing a finger up to his lips with a wry smirk. "You know," he says in a low tone, "there's not much point to keeping a doctor away if you're going to starve yourself to death."

_ Hey now. _ Shuichi was  _ going _ to get a full meal, but he couldn't exactly take a whole tray out of the dining hall, now, could he? "I'll just get a full dinner later, it's no worry," is what he says instead. "What about you, though?" Ouma didn't have  _ any _ food on his side of the table.

"I ate while I was playing hooky from English,  _ obviously. _ " Ouma rolls his eyes, like it's the most obvious thing, like he didn't  _ actually attend English after all. _

"You didn't play hooky from English, though," Shuichi points out, "you were right next to me in class."

Ouma blinks, face blank like he's surprised, before he smiles broadly. "Oh,  _ I _ see! You got fooled by my body double henchman! I didn't think he was doing that good a job, but if he's tricking  _ you, _ Shumai, maybe I should give him a raise from three candy corn a day to four candy corn and a can of panta. Cherry, though, the nasty kind."

"You don't have a body double," Shuichi says, coolly.

Ouma's grin gets just a touch more insidious. "Then explain how I got to class before you. I was sitting on the floor by the lockers, and you left first. A body double is the most logical explanation, isn't it, Saihara?"

"No, it's not, because you are a very unique person for any number of reasons and it would be extremely difficult to find someone who could actively pretend to be you for any significant length of time, especially for your classmates." Shuichi explains, to Ouma's pleasure. "And the explanation for how you got there first is quite simple. You took a more direct route. English class takes place one story up from the locker area, almost directly above it. I walked to the stairwell, climbed the stairs, walked to the classroom, and entered. I  _ suspect _ what you did was rush a classroom nearby, open the window, leave the building,  _ climb up the building, _ and then either opened the window yourself, or banged on the window and cried until someone, likely either Kaede or Tojo, let you inside the classroom, at which point you hastily acted like you'd been there the whole time before I showed up."

Ouma's smile fades. "An interesting theory,  _ detective. _ But theories are just guesses, dressed up to sound smart to idiots. You're gonna need some  _ evidence _ to sway  _ me. _ "

Shuichi doesn't even blink. "You tried very hard to mask it when I got in, but your breathing was labored for the first couple of minutes into class, like you had been doing something strenuous. Your cheeks were flushed, and your fingers were a bit scuffed, which would make sense if you were scaling the outside of the school." Shuichi pauses. "Also, Kaito mentioned you knocking on the window bawling your eyes out on our way to the dining hall."

" _ Goddamnit _ Momota," Ouma curses under his breath. He recovers fast, though - typical Ouma - putting on a big grin before making a short, mocking clap. "Well, still, you got it! And you provided enough other evidence I don't even feel that mad about you using Momota's faulty testimony to build your case around." He punctuates with one final sharp clap. "Now! Didn't we have a paper we were going to look at?"

Shuichi nods, opening his messenger bag and pulling out the binder he'd stuffed the paper in. He manages to open the binder before the nagging feeling in the back of his head coalesces into an actual thought. "Wait, Ouma, weren't we talking about the fact that you haven't eaten?"

Ouma scoops the slip of paper out of Shuichi's binder and looks it over. "Oooh,  _ Saihara, _ " he croons, "is this a  _ coded love letter _ from a  _ secret admirer? _ "

It's  _ obviously _ not, and the suggestion is downright moronic, but Shuichi's heart still skips a beat at the idea and he  _ hates _ that. " _ No, _ Ouma," he says, a bit snappier than intended, "it seems to be some kind of key."

"Well,  _ duh _ ," Ouma says, looking downright bored. "If you're just gonna be all no fun allowed on this, then fine. It's a  _ constructed language _ ! Invented by only the brightest mind and sexiest supervillain ever to grace Hope's Peak Academy's halls."

"Wait,  _ you _ made this?" Shuichi pulls the paper back over to himself, giving it another look.

"It means a lot to me that you think I'm sexy, Saihara."

Shuichi splutters, his entire face turning beet red. "I'm not- I didn't- I mean- You-" he stutters, his face eventually finding its way into his hands as he stops trying.

Ouma's laughter, a bit softer and quieter than Shuichi's used to, snaps him out of his embarrassment and brings his attention back to the here and now. Shuichi clears his throat. " _ Anyways, _ I thought this was interesting. You clearly put a lot of work into it."

"Oh,  _ this? _ " Ouma waves his hand dismissively. "Psh. This is just a simple little thing. Made it in my spare time, you know? When I  _ really _ get into it is when it's time to worry." He leans forward, putting both elbows on the table to prop up his chin with. " _ So _ you'll notice some real simple rules to it. It reads left to right, most sentences typically follow a basic subject - verb - object pattern." He grins devilishly. "So make  _ sure _ you study this  _ very carefully, _ Saihara. There  _ will _ be a test."

Shuichi looks between the paper and the still-grinning Ouma leaning over the table. "So I take it you're going to do something with this?"

"Oh, yes!" Ouma pulls out a pen from…  _ somewhere, _ waving it in the air. "We're pen pals now, Shumai. I  _ do _ hope you get the hang of this soon, because you'll need to." He pulls a paper out and presents it to Shuichi. "Here's your first quiz! I expect nothing but high marks."

Shuichi looks down at the tiny scrap of paper Ouma's clearly torn from some larger sheet, Written left to right, it reads…  _ [eye] [boots] [square with a line] [eye] _ , with a "1630" scribbled underneath and underlined. Shuichi skims the key provided, to try and find the meaning of this. There are three columns, one for people, one for verbs, and one for places. Ouma's not wrong, Shuichi decides, this is pretty rudimentary as languages go. Eye means… Momota, boots… Those are in the verb section. Prank. Interesting pick for iconography, but it probably  _ is _ supposed to be hard to decipher. Square with a line is a place… Oh, the dining hall. So… Momota, prank, dining hall, Momota?

Shuichi's eyes flit back up to Ouma, who is watching with naked interest that he quickly tries to tamp down. "This doesn't make any sense."

Ouma's face turns into something truly maniacal. "Are you  _ insulting _ my  _ genius, _ Saihara?" He rumbles in a low, dangerous tone. "Think carefully before you speak your next words."

Shuichi looks it over again, comparing the message and the key, reading carefully. He even turns over the sheet to see the grammar rules - much the same as what Ouma had already mentioned verbally, but handy as a reminder in case Shuichi forgets. There's an example message on the key, too. It reads  _ [crown] [circle with a zigzag through it] [eye] _ , simpler than the test message Shuichi had just been given. Crown on here means… Shuichi, and then circle with a zigzag must be a verb… Hate. So it reads.. Shuichi, hate, Momota.

"No." Shuichi states, more firmly. "This is definitely wrong."

Ouma's glare holds firm for a few moments, before it sharply faces into a smirk. "Let me see that paper, Shumai," he says, all affectionate tone as he snatches it away and his eyes flit from line to line. They widen, suddenly, and he gasps so dramatically it cannot be anything but fake. "Why  _ Saihara! _ I can't  _ believe _ this! Somehow, you've managed to, in the process of receiving this paper, mix up all of these meanings! This key is completely useless now!"

That- that's literally impossible.

"That," a sly grin spreads across Ouma's face, " _ or _ whoever gave you this intentionally scrambled up the pictographs and their definitions." His grin disappears immediately after he says those words. "Probably the first one, though!"

_ So  _ that's _ how it's going to be, _ Shuichi thinks to himself.

" _ Anyways, _ " Ouma says, "I'm afraid that as a supreme leader, I have  _ quite _ a lot of business to attend to, so if it's all the same to you, I'm going to have to take my leave." He stands up suddenly, his chair squeaking. Shuichi winces. They're still in a library.

"Wait, though!" Shuichi says. "What does this  _ mean? _ I can't read it if I don't know what the words mean."

Ouma raises an eyebrow at Shuichi. He picks up the paper and waves it a bit in his hand before dropping it back to the table in front of Shuichi. "You're a  _ detective, _ aren't you? So  _ detect. _ " Ouma puts two fingers up to his lips, then shoots them towards Shuichi. " _ Au revoir, beau, _ " he calls before walking off, leaving a red-faced Shuichi in his wake.

Shuichi can't focus through the rest of the day's classes. He tries, but his attention keeps wandering back to the paper. Ouma had pointedly given him the key back when Shuichi had asked what the message meant, so surely it wasn't as useless as he'd claimed. It had to be helpful  _ somehow. _

It clicks midway through history. Ouma had said the definitions were  _ scrambled. _ Not  _ changed, _ scrambled. Meaning, all of the definitions for all of the pictographs are  _ all still on here. _ It's a puzzle, a cryptogram. It's a game, and now that Shuichi understands the terms, it's  _ really _ time to get to work.

Shuichi starts with the "people" category, because now that he knows these icons all refer to people, figuring them out gets a lot easier. A lot of them are something to do with people's talents - a needle obviously marks out Tsumugi, for example, an oncoming view of a tennis ball for Ryoma. By using  _ that _ process of elimination and cross referencing talents with pictographs, it gets much easier to figure out the rest. Shuichi uses the space provided - conveniently enough - between columns to put the  _ actual _ suspected pictographs next to their definitions, on the far side from the wrong pictographs.

That eliminates 6… no, 7? Is the nut supposed to be Kiibo or… oh, it's  _ Miu, _ of  _ course _ she'd have the nut. 7. So nine students left, along with one "other" pictograph. Shuichi guesses that's going to be the featureless face, but he doesn't label it right now, just in case. So the remaining students are… himself, Ouma, Kaito, Maki, Tojo, Amami, Kiibo, Angie, and Shinguji. And the remaining pictographs are… the crown, the eye, an avocado, a knife, an open mouth, a halo, a spider web, a zipper, and… a spike of some kind?

With a sigh, Shuichi quickly eliminates Amami, Shinguji and Angie from the remaining candidates. The crown… well, that's probably Ouma. In retrospect, that should have been obvious. The spider web is probably a reference to Tojo's maid outfit, so Shuichi crosses that off, too. So now…

Shuichi, Kaito, Maki, Kiibo. Eye, knife, open mouth, spike.

...Wait, the spike is shaped  _ just _ like Kiibo's hair antenna. Okay, one down.

Between the three of them - Shuichi, Kaito, and Maki - the open mouth really only fits one of them, and  _ definitely _ fits Ouma's perception of Kaito, so Shuichi writes that one off. Which only leaves two left: the eye, and the knife.

Was the knife for him? It had to be, right? He didn't  _ take _ cases like that, but of course, this was Ouma he was thinking about. Shuichi's sure he thought detective work was nothing but car chases and sexy handcuffing despite the detective's many protests to the contrary, judging by the fact that he kept asking Shuichi to sexy handcuff him. So, then, that would leave the eye for Maki.

...Wait. That doesn't make sense.

Ouma usually doesn't  _ interact _ with Maki. In fact, he pointedly tries to ignore her as much as possible, unless he's delivering an insult to or about her. So for  _ both _ his example message and his first real message to be about Maki? That doesn't make sense for Ouma's pathology at all.

So has Shuichi gotten one of the other pictographs wrong?

He skims them over, trying to see if he could find some mistake somewhere, something that doesn't add up-  _ wait. _

Eye.

_ Private eye. _

**_goddamnit._ **

Shuichi sighs loudly, just a little too loudly for the middle of math, but he barely thinks about it until it's happened, and by that point he has better things to focus on. The dagger for Maki? Well, he's not sure what relevance a dagger has to the Ultimate Child Caregiver, beyond the death stares she gave people sometimes like she was ready to kill you with her eyes alone, or asking people if they wanted to die six times in a day.

...In retrospect, maybe the dagger wasn't so far off.

Shuichi moves on to the verbs. Looking them over, maybe he should have started here - there are barely any verbs, compared to how many images were in the people category. The main problem is that a lot of the shapes here are more abstract, less obvious. Which, granted, makes sense. The verbs Kokichi put in are "meet/attend," "leave," "prank," "like [fondness]," "love [amorous]," and "hate." Shuichi isn't quite sure why a language this simple needs different words for "like" and "love," but it's not  _ his _ stupid puzzle conlang, so he guesses he doesn't have  _ that _ much room to judge.

Part of him wants to try and figure all of these out right now, but… a lot of these are very abstract. Most of it would be guesswork, explicitly, even more than the rest of his "detective" work for this conlang has been. Ouma will give more hints with time, he's sure. And for the current message, at least, the verbs picked makes this obvious. Boots could only refer to "meet/attend." So he moves on to locations.

This is easily the most complicated section. It's a decently exhaustive list of locations in Hope's Peak - most of the important places on campus are labeled, along with a few that are not important. There are also a few nearby off-campus locations listed… with addresses and everything. Ouma is nothing if not thorough. He skims the list, trying to see if any of them might provide some insight as to what "box with a line" could possibly mean, but surprise, it's just a  _ little _ bit too vague for that. Shuichi turns back to the message, instead.

_ [eye] [boots] [box] [eye] _ 1630

The syntax is weird. Shuichi flips over the key, just to double check. Yeah, it's right here. Ouma says that the majority of the sentences in the language are just three words, with only a few exceptions. So, if he puts together what he has of the sentence so far…

_ [Shuichi] [meet/attend] [box] [Shuichi] _ 1630

Rereading it knowing it's a message about a meeting, 1630 is obviously 24-hour time, so 4:30 PM, not long after school lets out. But one thing sticks out like a sore thumb. ...Why does Shuichi need to be in the sentence twice? That doesn't make sense, unless he's being applied to the location somehow. But that's just weird, what place on campus would be related to him?

...Wait.

Shuichi skims the location list again, this time with an eye for a specific detail. He finds it, twice.

_ Ultimate lab [applied alongside the person who owns it] _

_ Dorm room [applied alongside the person who owns it] _

So, taken as a whole… Shuichi figures he's supposed to meet Ouma either at his dorm room or his ultimate lab at 4:30. Which would be quite a bit easier to manage if those weren't on almost opposite sides of the school. Shuichi will just have to pick one and hope for the best. Box with a line. Does that fit the ultimate labs better, or the dorm rooms?

...Dorm rooms. Definitely. That's where he'll be.

By the time Shuichi's figured it out, school is already over. Thankfully, Kaede offers to cover him and send him the notes for class he, essentially, missed, thinking he was working on a case. He doesn't correct her, more for his own pride than anything.

Shuichi sticks his key into his dorm room door at 4:29 P.M., only to find it unlocked.

What a surprise.

Ouma's waiting inside when he shows up, all sprawled out on the couch, staring at his nails he had Amami do for him the other day. He had raved about them and made everyone look, and Amami had made a token effort of convincing him to quit flaunting them but he was obviously proud too. Ouma doesn't look up from them, even as Shuichi walks in.

"Eh, not bad, but you could have been more punctual. Don't you know detectives always arrive places early?" He continues not looking at Shuichi. "So did you just happen to walk in at the correct time, or did you actually manage to decode my message?"

"The second thing," Shuichi says.

_ Then _ Ouma looks at him, all excited energy. "Really? You did, now?" He puts a finger up to his lips, smiling wide. "So, tell me, then," in a low undertone, "you  _ did _ bring what you were supposed to, right? I'll have you killed if you didn't."

What Shuichi was supposed to bring? He racked his brain, trying to think of something that might apply… no, no. No.

"I wasn't supposed to bring anything," Shuichi declares.

Ouma's smile only curves further up. "You sure about that, detective?"

"Extremely."

Then the mask breaks, and Ouma's smile grows light on his face. He winks. "Ya got me! I just wanted to make sure you  _ actually _ understood the language. Seems like your grasp is alright!"

_ Well, I sure hope so, after all that time I spent on it, _ Shuichi thinks to himself. All he says, though, is a somewhat strangled "thank you?"

Ouma grins bigger. "Don't worry. Your next quiz will be harder."

"So is there a reason why we're meeting in my dorm room?" Shuichi asks.

Ouma pulls something out from under one of the couch cushions. It's a little DVD container. He rolls his eyes. "Movie night. Duh."

"Movie night," Shuichi echoes, not fully processing it.

Ouma sits up, then. "Yeah, Polly, but I want popcorn, not crackers. You got any?"

Shuichi shakes his head. Ouma just sighs and pulls a small brown package out from Shuichi's couch. "I anticipated this as well. Your woeful snack inadequacy will have to be remedied next time we do this, Saihara."

Shuichi's breath catches in his throat.  _ Next time? _

Ouma jumps off the couch in a single fluid motion, waltzes over to Shuichi, and passes the DVD box to him before slipping over to Shuichi's microwave and putting his brown (popcorn?) sleeve in to cook. Shuichi flips the DVD case over in his hands, reading the text front and back. Apparently it's some sort of cult classic murder mystery movie, but Shuichi's never seen it. Of course, Shuichi's taste in movies is, approximately, "would watch if in the same room with nothing better to do or would use them as white noise." Which, admittedly, makes his pop culture knowledge a little bit inadequate. C'est la vie.

Shuichi pops the DVD into the attached mount in his television (Hope's Peak was  _ such _ an expensive school, and he didn't need half of this), grabs the remote, and sits down on the couch, leaning back a bit and crossing one leg over the other. Ouma returns in a minute or two, carrying his freshly made popcorn with him. He leans in, falls into Shuichi's lap, and uses the opportunity to nab the remote from the far side of Shuichi. Shuichi, for his part, pretends very solidly that he doesn't notice the lap sitting or remote theft as Ouma adjusts the volume, puts on subtitles, and gets the show on the road.

The movie ended up better than he'd expected. Shuichi supposed he could say that about two of his surprises today, then.

* * *

The second note Shuichi receives isn't from Ouma at all. Kaito finds it stuck to his desk, a crown, a die, and a mouth with 12:30 P.M. noted as a time, a little winky face, and an underlined "TELL SHUICHI" beneath it.

Ouma is subtle when he wants to be, which is to say that Ouma is never subtle.

That was the day Shuichi learned that the die means "prank," which was a valuable lesson to learn a minute too late to stop Kaito from popping custard made with salt instead of sugar into his mouth.

After that… Shuichi starts getting messages every day, or near to it. Sometimes they're invitations to go someplace with Ouma or meet with him about whatever thing he wants to discuss that day. Sometimes they're warnings about his next prank plan. He and Shuichi start keeping track of the number of pranks Shuichi's stopped before Ouma could put them to work. Ouma had the lead at first, but Shuichi's gaining ground of late, and by this point they were neck and neck.

Eventually, they start passing notes in class, which is how Shuichi ends up learning the meanings of "like" and "hate," because Ouma has  _ quite a few _ opinions on the rest of their class. The messages are an occasionally indecipherable mishmash of english and the conlang, enough so that nobody can follow along with their meaning except the two of them. Now, Shuichi has never been a fan of gossip, but it never feels like gossip, talking with Ouma using the code. It feels… conspiratorial, almost. Like they're partners in crime.

Ouma also uses little faces to denote mood, sometimes. Often, actually. If Shuichi's having trouble understanding the tone of a message (since the language is so simple), often a little smiley face, a wink, or a chibi depiction of Ouma crying into the message gets the idea across pretty well what Ouma wants Shuichi to think of it.

When Ouma doesn't send a message one day, Shuichi finds himself a bit concerned. When Ouma excuses himself from class early, slipping out quietly, Shuichi finds himself more concerned. When Shuichi finds a crumpled up piece of paper in Ouma's desk, with only the icon for the conservatory and nothing else, he thinks about the smiles he's used to seeing, and he worries.

When did it get like this, between the two of them?

Shuichi shakes the thought from his head. It isn't time for that now.

In the hot, humid greenhouse room, it's a bit hard to find a spot that isn't speckled with sunlight coming in through the glass or slipping through the shadow of a plant here and there. Ouma, though, managed to find the darkest spot in the room and sit himself squarely in it, staring vacantly forward at nothing.

Ouma's eyes flit towards Shuichi when Shuichi steps forward. "Don't you have class," Ouma asks, his voice steady in a careful way it rarely is.

"I thought this might be more important," Shuichi says, stepping forward again. Slowly. Carefully.

"Well, it isn't," a bit of irritation slipping into Ouma's tone, "so you should go."

"I think I'll stay," Shuichi offers him a small smile, standing over him, wreathed in sunlight even as Ouma's coated in shadow.

Shuichi just sits down there, next to him. And when Kokichi buries his head in Shuichi's chest, making the already warm greenhouse even more unbearable, Shuichi doesn't say anything. He doesn't ask. He doesn't need to know.

Eventually, Ouma withdraws, takes out a pad of paper and a familiar purple pen, and scribbles a message down before passing it to Shuichi.

Two messages, actually.

Saihara and Ouma... leave? (that's a new one) the conservatory, and Saihara and Ouma meet at the ice cream shop off campus.

"Right now?" Shuichi asks.

"Well, yeah," Ouma rolls his eyes, his voice taking on a whiny tone, "it's  _ too hot _ in here."

"I meant more that we still have class," Shuichi says.

Ouma grins. "What, afraid Ishimaru will get you? Big bad senpai gonna yeww at you untiw you cwy?"

"N-no!" Shuichi stammers. "I just, thought we would go back to class when we were done, is all."

"Together?" Ouma's voice takes on a sly undertone. "Oh, imagine what they might think of  _ that, _ detective."

Shuichi's  _ entire face _ serves as the casualty to that sentence, and he's not recovered until well after Ouma has smuggled them out of the school (it's easier than Shuichi expected) and into the local ice cream parlor. Ouma insists on paying, which he claims is because he wants to flaunt his wealth and power, but Shuichi knows better. Which is why he slams a ten on the counter before Ouma can stop him.

He's not especially surprised to find a ten dollar bill in his back pocket that night with "Ouma hates Saihara :( :(" scribbled in code on an attached post-it note.

That ten dollar bill makes the rounds between them for weeks afterwards.

* * *

The crumpled up note incident isn't the last time something like that happens. It happens about once a month or so after that, occasionally more; Shuichi finding a note or multiple notes intentionally hidden, in a corner of the classroom, by the side of a garbage can, in the dining hall. Always making itself small and hard to notice. Shuichi isn't sure he finds all of them, but enough, hopefully. Sometimes, when he goes to meet Kokichi then, he'll yell at Shuichi, say things he doesn't mean. Burn up all his angry energy until it's gone, until he's shaking against Shuichi's shoulder, whispering apologies under his breath. Sometimes he says nothing, and cues Shuichi to talk about anything, something to fill the space. Sometimes they just sit in silence together.

Shuichi finds himself leaving notes for Kokichi too, sometimes, when he's feeling down. More often, though, he forgets, and it isn't until someone opens the (locked) door to his room at 11 PM that he realizes he never left it that day, too distracted with case work. Kokichi strides in like there's nothing going on, makes fun of Shuichi for not taking care of his room like nothing's wrong, brings food and water (and eating makes Shuichi feel better than he expected), puts on a movie and gently drags Shuichi away from his work.

The strangest part, to Shuichi, is that he lets him do it.

He doesn't remember the day Ouma became Kokichi to him, his time at school a blur of pranks and case work and trying to keep up on school and friends and somehow managing to deal with Kokichi taking him out of nowhere for a movie or dinner somewhere or just out to stare at the stars.

And, eventually, Shuichi doesn't know how he lived without any of it.

Before he can blink, it's almost time for summer break.

"So, you never did tell me," Kaede says at lunch one day, glancing over Shuichi's shoulder at the scrap of paper he's holding, "what  _ is _ this?"

Shuichi looks up from the latest coded message, warning him about Kokichi's impending prank on Miu after school today. "Oh, right," he says, as an afterthought. At first, he had kept Kokichi's hidden language to himself, because it didn't feel right sharing it with anyone, but as time went on and more of the class caught on to it, it just became the weird thing Ouma and Saihara did with each other, detective and prankster locked in a constant battle of wits. Or at least, Shuichi figures that's how it looked to other people.

Shuichi reaches into his bag and pulls out his key. He got it laminated, a month or so after Kokichi gave it to him, once he'd figured out most of the terms. He didn't want it to get damaged. Leave was marked on the thing in marker, and that was about it. "It's a language Kokichi made one day. He sent it to me with all the meanings scrambled - those are on the left - and had me decipher them - those are on the right. Now that it's all figured out, we sort of just use it to talk back and forth. He lets me know when he's going to prank someone so I can try and stop him - says it makes it more fun - and he asks me to meet him places sometimes."

Kaede looks it over, frowning. "This is really complicated," she says, finally.

"He says this is the simplest one he's made," Shuichi smiles weakly.

She raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, and he's a liar." She goes back to looking at the paper. "I have a question, though."

Shuichi shrugs. "Sure."

"Why didn't you finish it?"

Huh?

Kaede sets the paper down on the table, pointing at the verbs. "See, there's one here you never did put down."

The door to the dining hall slams. Shuichi doesn't notice. He's too busy staring down at the missing verb. The one Kokichi's never used.

Love.

Shuichi looks over the icons again, trying to figure out which one it was that he was missing. Which one Kokichi had never used before.

It's the circle with the zigzag through it. The one that he'd used for the… the example message. Shuichi turns the paper over, looking at it again.

A chill runs down every inch of his body.

The crown. The circle. The eye.

_ Ouma loves Saihara. _

Shuichi scans the dining hall, looking to pick Kokichi's face out of the crowd, but he's not there. Had he even come in to eat lunch? He skipped it, sometimes. Might be he's planning his next prank.

"Shuichi?" Kaede waves a hand in his face, snaps his attention back to her. "Earth to Shuichi. What's going on?"

Wordlessly, Shuichi shows her the example message, then turns the paper over so she can read the meanings. Kaede flips between them a couple of times, like she's trying to make sure she's reading it right. She looks up at Shuichi, down at the paper, back up at Shuichi.

"Is this news?" She finally asks.

" _ Yes? _ " A panicked tone escapes Shuichi.

"You two are together  _ constantly. _ Your arguing sounds like an old married couple sometimes. When you told me you didn't have a crush on me anymore, I assumed it was because you had it bad for Ouma."

Shuichi pauses. "Well."  _ Did _ he like Kokichi like that? Well... Yes. Yeah. Definitely. In retrospect, it was kind of painfully obvious. "You're… not wrong."

Kaede throws her hands in the air, paper and all. "Well, then go get him!"

"I don't know where he  _ is, _ " Shuichi points out.

Kaede gestures at the dining hall. "He's right…" her words fall flat when she notices who's missing from the tables. "Hm."

"He probably didn't leave because he heard us talking, right," Shuichi blurts aloud all at once, "like, that wouldn't happen, would it."

Kaede says nothing, just gives him a look, mouth very pursed, eyebrows raised.

"It would," Shuichi sighs, slumping into the table.

Kaede makes a little shooing motion. "I'll cover for you, just go get your boy already."

So Shuichi sighs, abandons the rest of what little lunch he had eaten to Kaede's care (she says she'll think of him as she "tidies it up"), and sets out to search for Kokichi.

After a quick diversion, of course.

* * *

Shuichi finds Kokichi faster than he'd expected. He's in the greenhouse again. It's even worse this time, a late spring day instead of an early fall one. Kokichi pays attention this time as Shuichi enters, his lips curled in an uncomfortably high smile.

"You noticed my note awful fast this time, detective," he says, and it sounds stiff, formal. Fake. Too obviously fake.

"I didn't find a note, actually," Shuichi says, walking over to him, "I just thought you would be here."

"Unacceptable," Kokichi snaps, trying to pull off a frown, but he can't quite manage it. His lips curl back into that uncomfortable-looking smile. "If you're not going to play the game, why are you even here?"

"I just," Shuichi breathes, "wanted to talk to you."

"Well, I don't want to talk with you," Kokichi lashes out. Afraid, Shuichi realizes. "I hate your guts. Don't want anything to do with you. You should leave. Forget you ever met me."

Shuichi doesn't do any of that. He sits down, next to Kokichi. Pulls him closer. Lets him cry on his shoulder for a while, while Kokichi lets his masks break in the face of the truth.

"You know," Kokichi finally speaks, his voice shaky, "I spent the longest thinking about that one. Love, I mean. It was the lynchpin. I couldn't mess it up. When I thought about the shape I wanted, it had to be a circle. Because a circle doesn't have any endpoints. It's forever."

Kokichi laughs a bit to himself, shaky, hoarse. "It's supposed to look like one of those kitschy charm half-necklaces, the kind you buy for ten dollars and wear once with your bestie and forget about. I'm as fascinated by them as I am disgusted by them, because," he breathes, laughs a little, sobs a little, "I always felt like they were close, you know? To how I saw love. Two people, opposites in some ways, so similar in others, coming together to," he draws in a raggedy breath, and his words come out as a whisper, "make something better."

Silence.

"This was stupid," Kokichi says, in a voice that's suddenly neutral, too neutral, "I never should have done this, never should have said anything, never should have ruined it."

"It's not stupid," Shuichi says, "and you didn't ruin anything."

Kokichi just laughs. "So what's your answer, then? Do you have anything to say?"

Shuichi smiles. "No. But I did have something to write."

He reaches into his bag. Pulls out the laminated slip of paper. Flips it over, passes it to Kokichi.

Kokichi rubs his eyes, stares down at the paper.

Below his example message, below  _ Ouma loves Saihara, _ is another, written on the lamination hastily, slightly smudged, in blue marker.

Its mirror.

The eye. The circle. The crown.

_ Saihara loves Ouma. _

Kokichi tries to look up, but he can't meet Shuichi's eyes. Not in that moment.

Shuichi pulls him up instead.

It's nothing to write home about, their first kiss. Sloppy, rushed. A little too salty, on account of Kokichi's tears.

But that's fine.

They have plenty of time to work on that later.

**Author's Note:**

> and we open with Kokichi POV! I kinda wish I could have made the whole thing Kokichi POV just bc i fucking love writing as Kokichi, but half the fun of this is in Shuichi puzzling everything out so his POV was essential. I just get the beginning, and a teeny bit at the end, as a treat.
> 
> Shuichi is the type of kid who reads literary fiction - fucking, to kill a mockingbird and shit - for fun. change my mind, you cant.
> 
> These two have really good chemistry together. You can tell because I was just trying to get the plot rolling, and then they derailed me for like 500 words to shit on each other's eating habits and then stage an impromptu class trial about kokichi climbing a fucking building. None of that was planned. The classroom thing was gonna be a one-off gag. These two just. Do this. And I have to cope with that.
> 
> [shuichi figuring out a conlang asmr]
> 
> i was gonna keep writing authors notes as i reread it before posting but i got too sucked into my reread and completely forgot. Which. I personally think speaks for itself really. Good job me, pat on the back.
> 
> This was a lot of fun to write! I might do something else in this universe at some point, but for now I'm happy with it. I've never done anything this unambiguously fluffy before, and I enjoyed it a lot, actually. Weird, who knew writing happy things could be enjoyable. STRANGE.


End file.
